We arrive in Valencia with a good package - Alonso

F1 Grand Prix, GP Europe, Valencia Street Circuit

All three Spanish drivers were called up to yesterday’s FIA press conference in Spain, so that Fernando Alonso was there along with Pedro de la Rosa and Jaime Alguersuari. “It’s always good racing in your home country and hopefully we will put on a good show for all the people here,” began the Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro driver.

“It will be interesting to see how this race goes as there have been some circuits better for us, some circuits with problems, some up and down for the team performance in the last couple of races so hopefully we can continue the performance we saw in Montreal, be competitive here again and hopefully finish on the podium. We are happy with the job we have done in these last couple of weeks so we arrive in Valencia with a good package in our car but we remain very calm about our expectation as other teams were not watching television in these last two weeks so I think everybody will bring updates here. Hopefully ours is a little bit better than others.”

Having suffered because of slow backmarkers in Canada, Alonso was asked if he felt next year’s re-introduction of the rule that any car not qualified within 107% of the pole time cannot start the race would help this situation. “I don’t think that next year we will see the difference that we’ve seen this year. I think the three new teams arrived very late and I think next year they will be better prepared and the gap will be closer.”

A relaxed Fernando also had some fun with a journalist who asked what he felt about the updates on the F10 after, a few days ago, he did some laps of the Fiorano circuit as part of a filming day, which is allowed in the F1 rules. “The feeling was very good and I was running behind a car with cameras so it was very good at 60kph, very stable,” he joked. “We also did some laps without a car in front but we had ten cameras on the car and on the helmet so it was not very comfortable to drive. It was also my first time driving a Ferrari Formula 1 car at Fiorano, so I really have no idea but I think tomorrow we will have a better answer.”